He talked of pensioners trapped in McCathy & Stone properties, which have fast depreciating values.

He named Vincent Tchenguiz, whose Tchenguiz Family Trust in the British Virgin Islands ultimately owns the old McCarthy and Stone freehold book, and FirstPort, formerly Peverel which was owned by Tchenguiz before his arrest, on wrong evidence, by the Serious Fraud Office in February 2011.

The sorry picture of many retirement leasehold properties is revealed on the Land Registry.

Contact LKP

The leasehold game is weighted against ordinary home-owning leaseholders, who aren’t professional players. LKP was set up to redress the balance, to help you win your disputes or at least avoid disasters.

If you have a leasehold problem, you can email sok@leaseholdknowledge or take a chance on calling 07808 328 230.

Comments

McCarthy & Stone (M&S) on the 01/09/2009 who were a Retirement Housing Specialist Company agreed to change its lease agreements, after meeting with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) who secured an agreement from them to amend its leases, especially in relation to the re-sale of properties. M&S has agreed to remove a term in the lease from future contracts, and not enforce in existing contracts, that involved charging consumers a ‘transfer’ fee of one per cent of the sale price when the property was subsequently sold.

The OFT considered this term was likely to be in breach of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 ( UTCCR1999). The company said that it did not agree with the OFT’s view but co-operated with discussions and agreed to the changes. The company has also agreed to amend various other terms.

Has M&S kept to this agreement or has it been forgotten, it was made?

Also note the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations is looking in to the Leases of Leasehold High-rise Flats, that contain unfair clauses in consumer contracts that unfairly place the replacement of external claddings as a Leasehold responsibility.

Chas, there was a similar agreement with Fairhold in 2012 over permission fees in it`s 53,000 retirement homes portfolio. Another one of these famous “pledges” from the OFT and government. However with the cavaet. “undertaken that it will not charge a transfer fee in any new leases it obtains through the acquisition or development of properties, unless the fee is for a service and represents its reasonable costs.”

But many of the M&S leases drawn up by them, were sold to Fairhold who I believe still charge 1% administration fee on sale. “A transfer fee of one per cent will continue to be charged on sale. But it will now be calculated against the lower of either the price the tenant sold the property at, or the price the tenant originally paid for the property.”

I know my lease was McCarthy and Stone Developments in November 2007 but by June 2009 it was Fairhold No. x

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